Flowers and Mother's Day Gifts

  Boy, blogging is weird. The internet is weird. Here I am blogging along quietly,viewership way down since I stopped posting daily,when all of a sudden the views  shoot up to more than seven times what they were the day before! What makes the difference? Why did thousands of people suddenly decide to view the blog? And where the heck are those views going,because they aren't on the most recent posts? (When I was posting every day I was getting big numbers, but they weren't going on the daily posts either. So why did not posting every day make a difference? I know. It has something to do with showing up in searches. But then what happened that day?)
  Anyway, on to other things. My lovely lilacs are in full bloom now.

I keep moving the self starts around. There are more bushes at the back door,and in the side yard.

I'm on my second vase full in the house,and enjoying the wonderful smell. Ivy likes to eat them! 

  I also have loads of iris' this year.

As you can see,I have not tidied my flower beds. So sue me. I did mow the grass today.

 Tuesday night I worked on one of my unfinished things. It's not quite done yet, but it's really close. When it is done I'll show you.
  I also said I'd show you my Mother's day gifts. Well first I should show you one of my birthday gifts that I forget to show you! It arrived a bit after my birthday because Ken ordered it for me and it took a while. I thought I was getting one,(I found it online and put it in my watching!),but when it arrived there were two mini decks of cards.

They had to be punched out and the boxes had to be folded together.

They aren't 52 card decks,so maybe that's why they give you two. I like there to be complete decks,(and mini books should have readable pages.). But mini decks of cards are always unrealistically thick when there are 52 cards,because the cards can't be realistically thin enough to be to scale without being like tissue paper,and nobody wants tissue paper cards.

  So these little guys are thin, but not tissue paper thin. They look good,even if it is hard to close the lids all the way because the cards are so tightly in there.
  For Mother's Day I got some lilac lotion from Ivy. I have said before how much I love the smell of lilacs. They sell lilac lotion at a few places, but the girls always shop for cruelty free,which is harder to find. Emma gave me a Hallmark Princess Leia ornament, and a pretty "Mom,I love you with all my heart" picture frame with a picture of the two of us in it. Ken gave me edibles,including some Tunnock's tea cakes. They are sort of like those marshmallow Wagon Wheel thingies,with coconut,the difference being that the marshmallow in the Tunnock's is vegetarian.  (Your regular marshmallows are made with 'animal skin, connective tissue, and bone',usually hooves and things! Bleh.)
  Emma also gave me these little goodies.

They are various scales. Most of the pieces are 1/6 scale or thereabouts.

  Ken also gave me a non edible gift. He's so crazy. He hates to buy me anything if I know I'm getting it. So if I'm with him and I find something I want as a gift, he'll refuse to get it for me because, "You'll know you're getting it and I can't surprise you." Usually that means I don't get it at all because he can't find it again, or forgets, or can't remember where we saw it or which thing it was. In 2018 I found this doll at Walmart.

Sorry about the dark picture. There was a lighter one,but it was out of focus.
 

Looks like a whole different doll.

I said I wanted her, and when I looked through them, this one had a particular smirky grin. 

There was just a slight difference in her face paint compared to all the others that made her better than all the others. I insisted I wanted that particular one.
 

  There was some back and forth about how he couldn't surprise me if he bought it then,versus  better to not be surprised and get the one I wanted. He finally bought her. But then I didn't get her that Christmas. He said he forgot where he hid her. Then my birthday came. And then Mother's day. Then another Christmas! I still hadn't gotten her. He still claimed he couldn't find her. How even a slob like Ken could lose something that big was...

Although I know for a fact there's still a yard decoration of a girl in the foyer somewhere,(Ken's 'office' is in there.), that he bought for me and hid years ago. I came across it once,but put it back so he could surprise me with it. It's had to be in there at least 10 years now.
  So my birthday came this year, and now Mother's Day,and I finally got her! He won't tell me how long he's known where she was!
  So,that's it for this post. See you soon.

Doll-A-Day 2017 # 40: Frozen Anna Animator's doll

Yesterday we saw Frozen Elsa. Today we're looking at her little sister Anna.

Anna is another doll from the Disney Animator's Collection.This is the original version of Anna.I think they may have changed her dress now.There was also a set with Anna and Elsa and 2 extra dresses and dress dummies.

 I love the Animator's Collection dolls.

You can see from Anna's hair how much it was snowing yesterday.I kept removing the snow from her hair but it kept collecting again!

The Animator's dolls are 16" tall,but there is a line of mini dolls that are identical, but only 5" tall.

 I have seen some wondeful repaints of the Animator's dolls,and I'd love to try it. Of the 9 Animator's dolls I have,(I just remembered that i have Rapunzel too.)there are two sets of doubles.I have 2 Little Mermaids and 2 Cinderellas,so maybe I'll try a repaint on one of them,if I ever get brave enough.

Some people have complained that Anna's ponytails are too high.

Elsa was ok with out a coat, but Anna needs something in this cold!

Anna comes with a little stuffed Olaf.

I think this is the most snow we've had all winter.Ken always says there has to be a big snow storm around his birthday, which was today.He's almost always right.

In spite of all the snow, it really didn't seem that terribly cold.My hands didn't even get that cold.A few days ago,when there was no snow,my hands were aching when i went outside and took a few pictures!

Anna is one of my two favourite Animator's dolls,the other being Merida.I have one Merida, but if I had an extra one for a repaint, I'd like to make her into a boy.I think she's make a great little boy with that smirk.

This doll is one i would have loved as a kid.

 "Do you want to build a snowman?"

Turns out you can't even see them, so why did I bother, but my pathetic little snowman actually has real coal eyes.There are always a lot of little coal pieces in front of one of our basement windows.They work their way up out of the dirt all the time, because years and years ago, that's where the coal truck unloaded coal into the basement for the stove that heated the house.The stove is actually still down there, but not hooked up for use anymore.
  Tomorrow is another doll. See you then.

Doll-A-Day 2017 # 39:Frozen Elsa Animator's Collection Toddler

  Well! We have quite a covering of snow today! Perfect for today's doll! Elsa!

I love these Disney Store Animator's Collection toddler dolls!

They have wonderful big eyes and sweet faces.

 I have about 8 of them, but only 2 were bought new. The rest were thrift store finds, including today's Elsa.

Really, this kid should be wearing a coat, but she's Elsa,so I guess she's ok...

Only a few days ago I was outside with Goldie Blox and it was fairly mild,and I showed you my starting daffodils. Here's what they looked like today.

The toddler dolls are 16" tall.

They're jointed at the neck,shoulders, and hips,

They can actually lift their arms out from their sides a little,and not just up and down.

They can tilt their heads side to side,up a little,but not down very much.

I have Kristoff too. You can see my review of him HERE.

The Frozen toddler dolls haven't changed much, but there have been a couple of different dresses, and a special set with Elsa and Anna with extra dresses. This is original Elsa though.

She was found at the thrift store like this,(Except for having a bath.),with her original dress and tights, but no shoes. She borrowed some for some of her pictures, but is shoeless in some of these.

"Do you want to build a snowman?" Gee,who could she be talking to?.......
See you tomorrow!

Frozen Frozen Everywhere and Not a Drop to ...Drink? I Make a Yard Sale Score

  Ok,I was pretty excited because last night I finally ordered my Frozen dolls, before The Disney Store sold out of all of them again. (It's taking longer this time, although some of the dolls still sold out before I had a chance to look. And thanks to Beastsbelle from the Never Grow Up blog for the early warning, or I would never have known at all!) But, I was a little worried about having spent so much money. Then look what I ran into today!

I got all this at one yard sale for $26! The Barbie house is just about the most realistic and cool Barbie house I have seen, although some of it is obviously from the same molds as the High School Musical high school. The front doors have school style door handles. (Should have shown you I guess.) The house, and a huge trash bag with furniture and accessories for the house, plus bags of of clothes,shoes,pets and supplies, and a bag of Polly Pockets and their clothes and cars, and some Polly sized Disney Princess dolls and their stuff,and all kinds of accessories was $20!

If Draculaura ever finishes, Liv Sophie is waiting for a turn in the tub.

The little pandas are finger puppets, and the elephant, and maybe the bear, are Only Hearts Girls.

Why does the computer do this sometimes?!

I'm not sure who those glasses actually go on, as they fit Liv, Monster High and Moxie Girlz, but I love them.

I got the dolls, (Three Liv dolls, a Moxie Girlz, a Monster High Draculaura, and Frozen Anna and Elsa.) for 50 cents a piece, except for the one Bratz and the one Bratz Kidz doll, which were in a bag of shoes/feet, clothes, accessories, and the two Moxie Girlz styling heads,for 50 cents! The really cute little high chair was a quarter.

I don't know who it's for or who it will definitely fit, but it was so cute and cheap.The bag of clothes contained the outfits for the Draculaura and Liv dolls, and some Moxie clothes. The bag of shoes ended up being 52 pairs and two odd shoes!

Barbie, Liv,High School Musical,Moxie Girlz,and Monster High.

 That's a lot of shoes! The house actually seems to have most of it's original stuff too. It's in pretty nice condition with one break in the plastic that doesn't affect it structurally, or even show very much. Everything was very clean and well taken care of. So,I can sell the house, (even though it would be nice to keep it, if I had space. It has lots of really neat, realistic features.), and help finance my Frozen purchases. They will take up less space than the house too! So that makes me feel a bit more relaxed about buying things for myself. I'm also happy to have the two Frozen dolls I got today.

I was glad to have them, even though Anna was missing her skirt. When I checked out the bag of stuff with the house I saw that there were bags of clothes and shoes in it, and asked TLWRTS,(The Lady Who Ran The Sale), if she would sell anything out of the bag. She immediately said no. I thought about it,(Ok, for a split second.), and decided it was such a good deal I might as well buy the bag and house for $20, even though I knew Ken would freak if I brought home another huge doll house. (Actually he was really good about it.), After I bought it and was on the way home I realized Anna's skirt was probably in the bag. And it was! They have their shoes/boots too, and their hair has never been taken down, so, good deal for $1.00 total!

I really wanted the articulated Disney Store ones, but I thought I was going to have to resort to these anyway. As it was, Elsa was sold out before I even checked the site out last night, so this will probably end up being my only Elsa doll. I was thinking I was going to have to wait until the Frozen dolls hit the yard sales, but I didn't think it would be this soon! To prove my theory about girls stopping playing with dolls early these days, the little girl who owned this stuff was 11!
  After this I came home for more money,because I had only taken $20 with me, and went to the church sale I started to go to in the first place. While I was there I started feeling REALLY lousy and decided to get home as SOON as possible. When I came home I ate something, because I thought that might have been part of my problem, and then just kind of sat and felt awful and finished the Dr. Livingston documentary I started A WEEK AGO. With driving everybody back and forth to work and having to pick Ken up at 2 or so in the morning and then get to bed, I haven't been getting enough rest. So, check out that Skipper Saturday post, cause I'm going to take a shower and get comatose for a while until I have to pick Ken up.

  Check out my other post today for Skipper Saturday.